


Water Cycle

by quaid_poppinjack



Category: Good Omens (TV)
Genre: Ficlet, M/M, Philosophy, Religious Imagery & Symbolism, chem and physics 101?, finding yourself
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-25
Updated: 2019-09-25
Packaged: 2020-10-28 05:22:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 810
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20773229
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/quaid_poppinjack/pseuds/quaid_poppinjack
Summary: A brief character study of Aziraphale.There is Falling, and there is falling. Aziraphale will not Fall from Grace and will not fall for sinning. He willingly chooses to step slightly to the (sinister) left, free of Heaven's umbrella so he's exposed to the sinful and virtuous thunderstorm of Humanity in all it's echoing crashes and brief flashes of enlightenment.





	Water Cycle

**Author's Note:**

> Raise your hand if you were raised in a conservative christian household that eventually abandoned you, and now you process your many issues through various styles of art.
> 
> Apologies for going all A. A. Milne with capital letters.

Water Cycle

~~~

**Precipitation**

_War War, go away._  
_Come again another day_;  
_Aziraphale wants to play,_  
_so never come again this way._

But who's rules should he play by?

Thou shalt not kill? Funny how a righteous angel equates to a sinning human. A Sin for Humanity is a Solution for Heaven.

(Crowley spends 5999 years delineating the hypocrisy, but it takes the drowning of hope for Aziraphale to tilt his face into the downpour of truth of his own volition.)

There is Falling, and there is falling. Aziraphale will not Fall from Grace and will not fall for sinning. He willingly chooses to step slightly to the (sinister) left, free of Heaven's umbrella so he's exposed to the sinful and virtuous thunderstorm of Humanity in all it's echoing crashes and brief flashes of enlightenment.

Droplets of envy and charity, gluttony and chastity puddle with diligence and greed and overflow into woodland streams built of kindness and pride. Or they merge with mountain brooks of humility and lust that skitter downward to tumble and confluence into greater and grander rivers of patience and sloth, temperance and wrath.

It all intermingles within the same interconnected ocean on Earth, the same waters She uses to baptize Aziraphale into Her greatest Creation.

~~~

**Infiltration**

There must always be balance.

The polarities of Sin and Virtue bond together as covalently as Hydrogen and Oxygen.

They fall from the heavens, soak the soil, permeate the cracks and pores, a little temptation here, a little blessing there.

Sin and Virtue percolate into the Earth, and if Aziraphale and Crowley absorb it until they are more of Humanity than Heaven or Hell, then so be it.

Once upon a time, when every day meant blue skies and nice (naive), sunny weather, Crawly hissed to Eve to pick the forbidden fruit, to consume it, to tap into awareness of the Knowledge buried within.

A serpent isn't to blame for making the tree absorb Sin and Virtue; it is Creation's signature bleeding into the roots, into the sapwood itself, into potential.

The serpent _is_ to blame (thank) for the Wisdom that taught Humanity to pulp those virtuous and sinful wood tissues into sheets, to ink them with Knowledge. To bind them together into the volumes resting upon the shelves of a bookshop.

Who Plans for an angel on Earth to slide fingertips over spines and pages so the embedded Sin becomes kinetic and absorbs into his corporeal flesh to become part of his ethereal mind?

Who Plans for Aziraphale to read in a soft voice once he settles tipsy and tucked beneath the lanky angles of a demon's body? To slip words of Virtue into the curl of Crowley's greedy ears. '_The wave is already water. Does the wave have to go looking for water? No. It is the same for you. You have God within you, so you do not have to look for God.'_

And if Crowley turns a clever tongue to steal both the Sins and Virtues from Aziraphale's willing mouth, do they tip those balanced scales until they flip?

~~~

**Evaporation**

Gabriel strips away most of Aziraphale's fluid doubts on the tarmac in Tadfield and bears the particles to Heaven. Any of it remaining boils away when Satan dissipates from denial upon Adam's lips.

Aziraphale is left with a desiccated skeleton to rebuild his foundations upon; he is made of Sin and Virtue cobbled together with undoubted truth.

(He once thwarted Crowley's temptation of Descartes by upending a basket of partially rotted apples upon the two during their intimate conversation while Descartes penned _Meditationes de Prima Philosophia_. Was this hyperbolic Sin? He never bothered examining, but he kept one of the good apples.)

When Crowley takes his hand to dissolve the final chains binding him to Heaven, Aziraphale does not doubt the legitimacy of his perceptions. He joins Crowley on their own side.

~~~

**Condensation**

Freedom has no fixed shape and no definition of volume.

No wonder then that the pressures of Heaven and Hell force Aziraphale and Crowley to draw closer until they share their Virtues and fuse their Sins as one solidified spirit.

He has just soaked in holy water for Crowley. _When you pass through waters, I will be with you; through the rivers, you shall not be swept away. _ His Sins must be approved for She is omnipotent.

Crowley has just spared him by burning. _When you walk through fire, you shall not be burned, nor will flames consume you_. It must be She who allows a demon to survive Hellfire with Virtues intact.

Is it truly Sin or is it Virtue that finally brings him to this bed where his energy spends, where Crowley's hips roll liquid into Aziraphale's heat and press him into cottony cumulus pillows?

Aziraphale breathes Isaiah against Crowley's tensed wrist and does not wonder what crystallizes their salvation from vapor.

**Author's Note:**

> Quotes and sources:
> 
> infiltration: "The wave...do not look for God." _You Are Here _ Thich Nhat Hanh
> 
> evaporation: _Meditations on First Philosophy _ Rene Descartes 
> 
> condensation: ESV Bible Isaiah 43:2 "When you pass through waters, I will be with you; through the rivers, you shall not be swept away. When you walk through fire, you shall not be burned, nor will flames consume you."


End file.
